Olsson, Nils

Abstract [en]

The main focus of this paper is to present a sustainability evaluation framework which in-cludes environmental, ecological and social aspects. The framework has been developed and tested in a case study within the construction and demolition sector. Groups of long term un-employed people were offered environmental education and manual labour, working with recovery and recycling of building and demolition wastes as a form of vocational advance-ment, within a project carried out in two Norwegian and one Swedish municipality. The paper presents result from a case study of the Swedish part of the project. Two groups of unem-ployed people have worked within the project for periods between six months and one year. A number of activities were studied in closer detail, and indicators of the different aspects were obtained empirically and through literature studies. Ratio-indicators, linking indicators from different aspects to one and other were calculated. For instance ecological and economical ratio indicators were calculated, resulting in eco-efficiency figures allowing for comparisons of different activities. As for reducing environmental impact, the most promising results were shown within the process of preparing bricks for re-using. This activity also proved to be eco-nomically sustainable, but concern for lacking sustainability from a health and work environ-ment perspective is expressed. The discussion analyses the possibility to use the framework for sustainability analysis as intended, and some remaining questions that need to be ad-dressed in further development of the framework. One conclusion is that the data collection to perform this kind of sustainability analysis is resource demanding, and that it therefore would be of interest to identify a smaller number of core indicators.